


line 5: chance

by jjokkiri



Category: Produce 101 (TV), X1 (Korea Band)
Genre: First Meetings, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:27:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22642579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jjokkiri/pseuds/jjokkiri
Summary: Seungwoo meets a pretty boy on the subway.
Relationships: Han Seungwoo/Kim Wooseok | Wooshin
Comments: 13
Kudos: 81





	line 5: chance

**Author's Note:**

> written in response to a prompt via curiouscat: _“wooseok falls asleep on seungwoo’s shoulder.”_

_Delicate lashes and the gentle curve of a pout on soft, pink lips_ —Seungwoo really doesn’t mean to stare but it’s hard to keep his eyes off of the pretty boy who has fallen asleep on his shoulder. The boy had a textbook clutched in his arms and, despite his exhaustion, he’s still gripping onto the spine of the book as if it cost more than his life. And Seungwoo wouldn’t be surprised if the thick law textbook really did cost something ridiculous. 

He would know. He was a student, too, not long ago.

He shakes off the urge to keep staring at the boy. He turns his attention to their surroundings. 

The subway is significantly emptier than it was when they had gotten on. 

When Seungwoo boarded the subway in hopes of fast-tracking his route back home for the night, there were barely any seats available between the many people. But he already paid the fare for the ride and surely, it wasn’t worth it to exit the platform to opt for a city bus. _Not at nearly ten at night._

They got onto the subway at different stops—Seungwoo and the boy who was fast asleep on his shoulder—Seungwoo got to his seat first. The seat beside him was the only available one when they got to the university stop. And as a result, Seungwoo and the boy who was now asleep against his shoulder had been squished between an elderly couple and another student when they took their seats on the subway. 

The boy was pressed up close to him from the moment they sat down but Seungwoo barely noticed it when the boy fell asleep on his shoulder. 

And now, Seungwoo doesn’t have the heart to nudge him awake. It comes as a belated realization that he didn’t know the boy at all. He doesn’t know where the stranger’s stop was, assuming that he hasn’t already missed it. Seungwoo has already missed his own stop because he was too caught up in his thoughts, worried about whether or not the boy would get home safely for the night.

He worries too much about strangers. He knows that about himself.

His friends remind him constantly of the fact.

The chime signalling their arrival at the last platform almost seems to echo. It snaps Seungwoo out of his own thoughts. Somewhere in the middle of his deep thoughts, his eyes had trailed back to the pretty boy’s features. He looks up from where his eyes had been focused on delicate lashes and pretty, pink lips.

_Right._

The chime of the doors beginning to open sounds, again. Seungwoo snaps out of his trance and gathers himself and his sense of reality. He has something to do. _He should do it._

Seungwoo gently nudges the boy awake, “Hey,” he whispers. 

Bleary, the boy shakes himself awake at the sound of Seungwoo’s voice. 

He blinks, slowly. He looks confused.

A small part of Seungwoo’s chest swells at the endearing state of the stranger. He swallows it. 

_He doesn’t even know this boy. How can he let himself feel something for someone he didn’t know?_

“This is the last stop,” he says with a small, apologetic smile. The boy looks almost as if he wants to argue—insist that he should be the one looking apologetic for having fallen asleep on a complete stranger. “I didn’t know when you were supposed to get off but you looked so peaceful, I didn’t want to wake you up.”

The stranger looks at the flashing sign above the door. The doors are about to close again.

He quietly clears his throat, “This is my stop. Thank you.”

And then, he’s gone.

* * *

And for some strange reason, some very out of character reason, Seungwoo’s mind keeps wandering back to the thought of the stranger with the delicate features who had fallen asleep on his shoulder.

Throughout the week, he simply thinks that he caught sight of something similar in the streets. Throughout the week, there are flickers in his mind and tricks of his eye that insist to him that he saw the boy again.

But it doesn’t make sense to approach someone that you don’t even know.

Seungwoo swallows his urge to approach a stranger for their name when all he remembered was long lashes and pretty lips.

_They probably wouldn’t see one another again,_ he reasons with himself. 

He carries on with his day.

* * *

He’s wrong. It’s not often that Seungwoo is wrong, but he’s wrong.

A late shift at the office changes his mind about the impossible. Seoul is only so large and a single encounter is bound to become many more, especially when their initial meeting place was somewhere so public. 

This time, when Seungwoo meets the strange boy with the delicate lashes and pretty lips, he doesn’t look as tired and it isn’t as late in the night. They aren’t taking the last train home. 

This time, he learns his name.

_Kim Wooseok_. It rolls off his tongue nicely. It suits him. 

It’s cute, just like the boy himself. Seungwoo brushes the rogue thought away.

_They still don’t know one another at all._

But this time, they take the same subway home and Wooseok animatedly talks about his day next to Seungwoo. His eyes are bright as he talks to him and Seungwoo finds him captivated by the smaller man’s eyes. _They’re prettier when he’s awake,_ he notes to himself silently. And Seungwoo can’t help but wonder if he ever looked so endearing when he talked about the things he studied in school, in the past. 

Wooseok is a law student, something Seungwoo already figured out from the textbook in Wooseok’s arms on the first day they met. The confirmation of a fact is reassuring, though. He feels like he knows him better, feels like he has a right to ask more about the pretty boy who now has a name.

This time, Wooseok doesn’t fall asleep on Seungwoo’s shoulder.

And, charmed by the smaller man’s speech, Seungwoo waits until Wooseok gets off at his stop. 

He takes the later train back to his stop. 

* * *

The third time they meet, it becomes more of a planned encounter than a coincidence.

This time, Wooseok gives him his phone number.

* * *

Wooseok, Seungwoo learns, texts a _lot_.

It’s endearing, to say the least.

* * *

Wooseok doesn’t find out that Seungwoo is supposed to get off the train three stops before him until their seventh meeting when it definitely isn’t a coincidence anymore. 

Wooseok doesn’t find out that Seungwoo doesn’t actually get off at the same stop as him until Seungwoo accidentally lets it slip when he’s walking Wooseok back to his place. It’s all an accident. 

He mentions, with a quiet laugh, that he doesn’t actually live very close to Wooseok when Wooseok suggests that they walk home together. He walks him home anyway and, somewhere along the way, Seungwoo offhandedly mentions that he lives near the library. 

Wooseok connects the dots all by himself.

“You’ve been staying on the train to talk to me?” Wooseok asks him, incredulously. 

Seungwoo can’t look him in the eye. He frowns, “Maybe.”

Wooseok laughs at him. 

“You should come in,” he says. 

Seungwoo looks at him weirdly. Wooseok shrugs his shoulders.

“If you stay on the train with me, you have to take the train back to your place, don’t you?”

Seungwoo nods his head.

Wooseok turns around to look at him with his hands clasped behind his back. 

He smiles, “So, why don’t you just stay the night?”

Seungwoo’s heart leaps in his chest. He laughs, shyly.

“What are you talking about?”

Wooseok waits for Seungwoo to catch up to his steps. It doesn’t take very long, Seungwoo’s legs are long and Wooseok isn’t moving. Wooseok grabs Seungwoo’s arm and leans his head against Seungwoo’s shoulder as they continue to walk down the street together.

“So, what do you say?” he asks, “Do you want to come over for some ramen?”

(Seungwoo lets go of himself for long enough to agree.)

**Author's Note:**

> [twt](https://twitter.com/yuseokki) / [cc](https://curiouscat.me/jjokkiri) ♡


End file.
